title: Microbial characterization of probiotics--advisory report of the Working Group "8651 Probiotics" of the Belgian Superior Health Council (SHC).
abstract: When ingested in sufficient numbers, probiotics are expected to confer one or more proven health benefits on the consumer. Theoretically, the effectiveness of a probiotic food product is the sum of its microbial quality and its functional potential. Whereas the latter may vary much with the body (target) site, delivery mode, human target population, and health benefit envisaged microbial assessment of the probiotic product quality is more straightforward. The range of stakeholders that need to be informed on probiotic quality assessments is extremely broad, including academics, food and biotherapeutic industries, healthcare professionals, competent authorities, consumers, and professional press. In view of the rapidly expanding knowledge on this subject, the Belgian Superior Health Council installed Working Group "8651 Probiotics" to review the state of knowledge regarding the methodologies that make it possible to characterize strains and products with purported probiotic activity. This advisory report covers three main steps in the microbial quality assessment process, i.e. (i) correct species identification and strain-specific typing of bacterial and yeast strains used in probiotic applications, (ii) safety assessment of probiotic strains used for human consumption, and (iii) quality of the final probiotic product in terms of its microbial composition, concentration, stability, authenticity, and labeling.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory for Microbiology & BCCM/LMG Bacteria Collection, Faculty of Sciences, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium. geert.huys@ugent.be
authors.forename: Geert
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Huys
authors.forename: Nadine
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Botteldoorn
authors.forename: Frank
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Delvigne
authors.forename: Luc
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: De Vuyst
authors.forename: Marc
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Heyndrickx
authors.forename: Bruno
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Pot
authors.forename: Jean-Jacques
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Dubois
authors.forename: Georges
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Daube
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D015373:Bacterial Typing Techniques; D001644:Bifidobacterium / Q000235:genetics; D005506:Food Contamination; D005515:Food Labeling; D005516:Food Microbiology; D064088:Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points; D006801:Humans; D058889:Molecular Typing; D010974:Platelet Aggregation; D019936:Probiotics / Q000032:analysis*; D011786:Quality Control; D014774:Virulence; D015003:Yeasts
keywords: Identification; Lactic acid bacteria; Probiotics; Product quality control; Safety